Poe 1953, Pt. 1

(Continued from Poe 1952, Pt. 6)

STRANGE FANTASY  4
"DEMON IN THE DUNGEON"

Farrell Publications is the name of a series of American comic book publishing companies founded and operated by Robert W. Farrell in the 1940s and 1950s, including Elliot Publishing Company, Farrell Comic Group, and Excellent Publications. Farrell is particularly known for its pre-Comics Code horror comics, mostly produced by the S. M. Iger Studio.  Farrell also published romance, Western, adventure, superhero, and funny animal comics.  Farrell acted as editor throughout.  In addition to packaging art for Farrell from the beginning, Jerry Iger was the company's art director from 1955–1957.

You know, it's one thing for comics publishers to be doing blatent SWIPES of Edgar Allan Poe stories, as we've seen from Marvel, EC and Charlton.  But a mere 3 months after FANTASTIC v.1 #3 published John Jakes's sequel to "THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO"-- "THE OPENER OF THE CRYPT", Ajax-Farrell did a blatent SWIPE of that!  I'd first run across Jakes' story early this year via the licensed 1973 Marvel adaptation in CHAMBER OF CHILLS #4 (May'73), with Frank Brunner art.  It wasn't until now that I did some research and discovered the original short story was from 1952.  Finding out that someone had ripped off its premise so soon after it came out was rather jaw-dropping!

A special tip-of-the-hat to "The Hillbilly Of Horror" himself, Mike Cannon Jr., for pointing me at this story, and supplying me with images from a later B&W reprint of it.  As a result of further research I did as a result of this, I wound up finding no less than 8 POE comics from the early 1950s I was unaware of until now!

Mike didn't have the 1953 original, but did have a B&W reprint from 1970.

Another special tip-of-the-hat to Pete Harrison at the History of Horror FB group, for posting the location of the Eerie Horror Comics.com site, which has MANY of the Eerie Publications books posted.  It was there I was finally able to find DECENT scans of this story, including the one page that was previously MISSING, and in addition, the ENTIRE 1974 remake of it!!!

Finally (?), a whopping big "thank you" to "Builder Boy" at Comic Book Plus, for posting COLOR scans of the original printing from 1953.  I worked on cleaning up this story in 2015 and 2016, while these "new" scans were posted online on January 7, 2017.  I found them on September 9, 2021, and here I am, a "mere" 6 months later, doing my 3rd consecutive clean-up of the SAME story.  Sheesh!

Because the scans of the B&W reprint were sharper, I'm going to include them after the COLOR original.

ENJOY!

STRANGE FANTASY  4
cover by [IGER SHOP]   (Ajax-Farrell  /  February 1953)

"DEMON IN THE DUNGEON"
     (a sequel to "THE CASK OF AMNOTILLADO")
Story & Art by [IGER SHOP]  /  Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Note how on both the covers of FANTASTIC and STRANGE FANTASY,
there's a character pressed tight against a door while terrifying creatures
approach menacingly.

Eerie Publications was one of the companies set up by el cheapo schlockmeister Myron Fass (infamously of M.F. Enterprises, who put out the android "Captain Marvel" who yelled "SPLIT!" --and then did).  While clearly meant to imitate and compete with the glorious James Warren B&W horror comics magazines (CREEPY, EERIE, etc.), instead of trying to raise the bar on quality of art and writing, these seem more aimed at the lowest possible dominator, kids who could take a perverse pleasure in being able to read shocking, brutally violent stuff that made the worst excesses of the early-1950s seem tame by comparison.  Ironically, the covers tended to be far more brutal, violent & shocking than anything inside.

Here's the issues that reprinted "Demon In The Dungeon"...

WEIRD  v.3  1  [v.2  5]
cover by CARL BURGOS   (Eerie Publications  /  January 1968)

"DEMON IN THE DUNGEON"
     (a sequel to "THE CASK OF AMNOTILLADO")
Story & Art by [IGER SHOP]  /  Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Here's the rest of the reprints...

TERROR TALES  v.2  2
cover by BILL ALEXANDER   (Eerie Publications  /  March 1970)

WITCHES TALES  v3  3
cover by JOHNNY BRUCK   (Eerie Publications  /  June 1971)

The 4th Eerie Pub. to feature this story actualy had the art redone from scratch by artist Cirilo Munoz.  All the other "reprints" on this list contained the original Iger Shop art.

TERROR TALES  v6  1
cover by ??   (Eerie Publications  /  February 1974)

PIT OF EVIL  8
cover by ??   (Gredown  /  January 1978)

TORMENTS OF HELL  [one-shot]
cover by ??   (Gredown / Boraig  /  1984)

PRE-CODE CLASSICS:  STRANGE FANTASY  Vol.1
cover by ??   (PS Artbooks  /  May 2015)

Copyright (C) the various artists & publishers.

Scan of STRANGE FANTASY #4 cover from the Heritage Auctions site.

Scans of TERROR TALES v.2 #2
     supplied by "The Hillbilly of Horror", Mike Cannon Jr.
     with special thanks!
Scans of WEIRD v.3 #1 (v.2 #5) from the Eerie Horror Comics.com site
     with special thanks to Pete Harrison for locating the site!
Scans of STRANGE FANTASY #4 from the Comic Book Plus site
     with special thanks to "Builder Boy"!

Scan of FANTASTIC v.1 #3 from the Pulp Covers.com site.
Scan of WEIRD v.3 #1 from the Aus Reprints site.
Scan of TERROR TALES v.2 #2 from the Facetasm site.
Scan of WITCHES TALES v.3 #3 from the Aus Reprints site.
Scan of TERROR TALES v.6 #1 from the Aus Reprints site.
Scan of PIT OF EVIL #8 from the Aus Reprints site.
Scan of TORMENTS OF HELL from the Aus eprints site.
Scan of PRE-CODE CLASSICS:  STRANGE FANTASY Vol.1
     from the Bud's Art Books site.

Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa

For more:
Read about Edgar Allan Poe at The Poe Museum site.
Read about Edgar Allan Poe at the Biography site.

See a TON of Eerie Publications covers at Google Search!
Read about Carl Burgos at Comics Alliance.
Read about Carl Burgos at the Lambiek Comiclopedia site.
Read about Bill Alexander at the This Is Horror blog!
Read about Gredown at the Comics Down Under blog!
Read about Gredown at the Notes From The Junkyard blog!

Read about THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO at Spark Notes.
Read about THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO at Cliff Notes.

Read the complete story at the Poe Stories site.
See the AMONTILLADO Gallery of Illustrations.

     Audio / Video:
Hear the WEIRD CIRCLE radio episode!
Watch the Bela Lugosi-Romney Brent SUSPENSE TV episode!
Hear the Basil Rathbone recording!
Hear the CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATER episode!

     Comics:
Read the Graham Ingels AMONTILLADO adaptation!
Read the Rudy Palais AMONTILLADO adaptation!
      Read the Iger Shop AMONTILLADO sequel!
Read the Gedeone Malagola AMONTILLADO adaptation!
Read the Fran Matera AMONTILLADO adaptation!
Read the Reed Crandall AMONTILLADO adaptation!

Read the Osvaldo Talo AMONTILLADO adaptation!
Read the Juan J. Aguilar AMONTILLADO illustrated story!   (coming soon!)
     Read the Frank Brunner AMONTILLADO sequel!
     Read the Cirilo Munoz AMONTILLADO sequel!   (coming soon!)
Read the Maro Nava AMONTILLADO adaptation!
Read the Martin Salvador AMONTILLADO adaptation!
Read the Guido Del Carpio Rivera AMONTILLADO illustrated story!

Read the Don McGregor / Mike Golden AMONTILLADO adaptation!
Read the Arturo Cassilas AMONTILLADO adaptation!   (coming soon!)
Read the Noly Zamora AMONTILLADO adaptation!
     (Coming soon:)
Read the Pablo Marcos AMONTILLADO illustrated story!
Read the Anne Toulmin-Rothe AMONTILLADO illustrated story!

See the CHRONOLOGICAL list of Edgar Allan Poe stories!
See the ALPHABETICAL list of Edgar Allan Poe stories!


(Continued in Poe 1953, Pt. 2)